Devices have been constructed for over one hundred years to split blocks by the use of wedges. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 630,983 issued in 1899, there is described an apparatus for splitting stones wherein a stone is mounted on a support behind a stationary wedge and a second wedge is secured to a pendulum hammer wedge hinged by stirrups whereby to swing down the hammer wedge against the stone so that the wedge strikes the stone in substantially the same plane as the stationary wedge so that the stone is impacted with wedges from opposed surfaces thereof. Several other devices have also been developed and wherein the wedges are brought down against the stone at more precise locations by mounting wedges on displaceable supports which are displaced by a threaded rod to which is imparted rotation by rotating a wheel secured to the threaded rod. The force applied to the splitting wedge is that of the force applied on the wheel by a worker. All of these devices are slow, labor intensive, time-consuming and do not provide accurate splitting of stones thereby resulting in excessive material waste. Some of these are also dangerous to operate and can cause body injuries.
Paving stones are now casted from concrete and with some of these it is desirable to split the casted concrete stones whereby to form two stones with a split face whereby the split face is jaggered by exposing the aggregate and thereby closely resembles that of a natural stone. In order to split these stones they are casted with a parting slot on a face thereof whereby a splitting chisel or blade can be positioned therein and by the use of a hammer the stone is manually split. Some problems with this technique is that it is slow and the hammer blow is never of the same force and often it is necessary to impart two or more hammer blows to a chisel to split the stone as the stone resistance in the area of the parting line may vary depending on the aggregate distribution under the parting slot. Such techniques are also hazardous in that chips of stone may injure the person splitting the stone. They also result in some stone waste by improper splitting.
Another disadvantage is that the stones need to be transferred one at a time to a splitter and then back onto a pallet or storage plate. This is labour intensive, hazardous and costly.